As the speed and density of modern integrated circuits (ICs) increase, the power generated by these chips also increases. The ability to dissipate the heat being generated by IC dies is becoming a serious limitation to advances in IC performance. Similar heat dissipation problems arise in other solid-state devices, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, power transistors, RF devices, and solar cells.
Considerable effort has been put into developing materials and structures for use as thermal interface materials, heat spreaders, heat sinks, and other packaging components for ICs and solid-state devices, with limited success.
Thus, there remains a need to develop new structures and methods for removing heat from ICs and other solid-state devices that are compatible with current semiconductor packaging technology, provide low thermal resistances, and are low cost.